Rationality and Religious Theism (Ashgate Philosophy of Religion Series) (Ashgate Philosophy of Religion Series)

Ars Disputandi Volume 5 (2005) ISSN: 1566 5399

N. Verbin TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY AND THE HARTMAN INSTITUTE, ISRAEL

Rationality and Religious Theism By Joshua L. Golding (Ashgate Philosophy of Religion Series), Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003; 142 pp.; hb. ¿ 50.00, pb. ¿ 19.95; ISBN: 0-7546-1568-5.

[1]

Joshua Golding's Rationality and Religious Theism is a well-argued work in philosophical theism, which attempts to demonstrate the rational defensibility of religious theism in general, and of Judaism in particular. Since similar arguments to Golding's own argument for the rational defensibility of Judaism can be constructed for other versions of religious theism, e.g., Christianity and Islam, Golding sees his book as providing a philosophical ground for a certain form of religious pluralism, which may acknowledge the rational defensibility of different religions, which make some con icting claims and which involve different practices. [2] Golding's apologetic, pluralistic project is based on a distinction between rationally defensible positions and rationally compelling ones: `A position is rationally compelling if it can be shown that any rational being ought to adopt that position. A position is rationally defensible if an argument can be marshaled to support that claim or position, and if criticisms and objections to that argument can be rebutted.' (2). Such an argument, according to Golding, may not be compelling upon all rational beings; it may, for example, rest on certain assumptions, which are intuitively plausible to some persons but not others. Thus, two opposing positions may be rationally defensible for different people. An adherent of a particular religious tradition can, therefore, conceive of her own religious commitment as rationally defensible for her, while viewing the commitments of religious theists of traditions other than her own as potentially rationally defensible for them. The philosophical possibility for a pluralistic, tolerant, and respectful religious interchange is thereby established. [3] The book consists of four chapters: Chapter One consists of an introduction and clari cation of the project as well as of a short presentation of Pascal's Wager. Chapters Two and Three contain the main argument of the book. In Chapter Two, Golding de nes religious theism; in Chapter Three, he argues that it is rationally defensible. He concludes, in Chapter Four, with a consideration of the rational defensibility of Judaism; he de nes what it is to be a religious Jew (a de nition, which ostensibly lacks the criterion of being a Jew), and proceeds to argue that it is rationally defensible to be one. [4] For Golding, one is a religious theist if and only if one ful lls the following conditions: 1) One has a conception of God as a Supreme Person, 2) One has a conception of the good relationship with God as supremely valuable, 3) One has c February 2, 2005, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:

N. Verbin, `Review of Rationality and Religious Theism,' Ars Disputandi [http://www.ArsDisputandi.org] 5 (2005), paragraph number.

N. Verbin: Review of Rationality and Religious Theism

a conception of the religious way, the way to attain or maintain that relationship with God, 4) One holds the belief that there is at least a live possibility that there is a God, i.e., one is not being totally convinced that there is no God, and one takes the belief into account when deciding how to act, 5) One holds the belief that following that religious way promotes the probability of attaining or maintaining a good relationship with God, and 6) One follows that way. While Golding's de nition of the religious theist may be appealing to the adherent of an institutionalized religion, who has a conception of the way to nd God, it is not likely to appeal to the wandering theist, who lacks such a conception. [5] Golding attempts to show that it is rationally defensible to be a religious theist by explicating the three conceptions that are involved in his de nition in a coherent manner: the conception of God as a Supreme Person, the conception of the good relationship with God and the conception of the religious way. His explication of the concept of `God' in terms of `Being', conceived of as that which all beings have in common, and his attempt to explicate God's attributes in terms of the principles that govern the existence and operation of the world is an interesting one, worthy of attention. Its coherence, however, is by no means evident. While Golding mentions various arguments for the incoherence of theism, he does not engage with them. [6] Golding attempts to show that conditions 4 6 of his de nition, too, are rationally defensible. He argues for the defensibility of the belief that it is a live option that there is a God by denying the validity of arguments for the incoherence of theism, as well as by pointing to various religious traditions' claims to revelation, which, he takes to provide some reason to think that God exists. As to condition 5, Golding argues that if one believes that a particular revelation has taken place, and if this belief is rationally defensible on the basis of certain historical writings, then one may also defensibly believe that she is more likely to attain the desired relationship with God by following the way prescribed by the particular revelation. The rational defensibility of pursuing that way, even in the face of substantial doubt concerning God's existence, is supported on pragmatic grounds, once the religious theist is taken to assign supreme value to having a relationship with God. [7] By concentrating on the internal coherence of the religious theist's commitments and convictions as the primary standard for rational defensibility, Golding makes kosher a great variety of epistemically suspect practices, e.g., the UFO congress and the Flat Earth Society, to mention only a couple. More troubling than that, however, are the presuppositions underlying Golding's whole project: he takes religious beliefs, including the belief that God exists and the belief that a particular divine revelation has taken place, as ordinary empirical beliefs with an extraordinary subject-matter, which are susceptible to refutation or validation as empirical beliefs are, disregarding a great deal of philosophical work, which renders the analogy highly implausible. [8] Despite my rejection of the very premises on which Golding's whole project is based, I nd his book a well-argued and interesting one.

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